


The Infidel at Kleiman Manor

by kerning



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ensemble Cast, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Murder Mystery, Period-Typical Racism, Political Alliances, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Tragedy of Duscur (Fire Emblem), Trans Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerning/pseuds/kerning
Summary: Return Duscur to Duscur.With King Dimitri’s council summoned for the pursuit of peace, they arrive before Kleiman Manor to do just that. Yet in the light of a murder, suspicions abound—together, will they be able to find the rat within their ranks?
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro, Marianne von Edmund/Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	The Infidel at Kleiman Manor

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as a silly desire for a Clue AU and then completely spiraled out of control. I've never been a fan of over-tagging or warnings, so let's name them ingredients instead, however I will state when such components are pertinent in the work. For instance, the major character death tag is for this chapter, as there would be no murder mystery without, well, the murder. On that note, the victim is described in mildly gory detail. Pity there's no "mild gore" tag. If such descriptions bother you I suggest skipping onto the next scene from the point "what tarried his gaze..."  
> I'm so so excited to share this first chapter with you all! I have a mini instrumental playlist for this chapter [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vAei6fFITp7yYcgCg7S00) if you'd care to listen while you read. Thanks for reading and comments and kudos are much appreciated! I'd love to know your thoughts!!

1187

_First steps toward lasting peace._ Dimitri’s breath had steadied, evened by the notion in spite of the burble of flickering specters, so surmounted by a desire in what small ways he could to ease Dedue’s rising distress as they had journeyed to Kleiman territory. Duscur’s capital proper of sorts, its forestry was interrupted by the flat landmark typical of Faerghus construction, ugly in its intrusiveness, high gated walls and courtyard in sharp contrast to the borderless Duscur settlement prior. Within the confines of their carriage, fingers still knit together by the only fledgling skill he possessed in the craft, they had arrived with their convoy before Viscount Kleiman’s manor. A much longer road lay behind them. A dream and a nightmare in tandem, each veil torn away for the cool embrace of reality measured hope beyond its infantile beginnings.

And all would be well.

Within the modest courtyard they had been received by the Viscount, his heraldic regalia worn with pride, gait supported by an ornately carved walking stick.

At present with the stretch of the evening Dimitri long put such gauche display of merit aside, overstuffed as it was within the bindings of political grievances. Exchanged for preferable company, he settled into the high-backed chair at the head of the table spread with several dinner courses. Such gestures of continued goodwill boded well, however thus far the chair across remained in want of the Viscount himself—none had gained private audience since their initial arrival. It would not do. Perhaps with the gathering of Dimitri’s council as Kleiman requested, their presence would allow for suitable terms. _No longer would Kleiman delay the inevitable._

He would allow nothing else.

At Dimitri’s left, Lucie Kleiman pardoned her father’s disappearance, ascription to fits of a malady and assuring his arrival after repose. “It is not his way, Father is not so feeble yet, I will seek him myself with your pardon.”

“Very well. ” He said, curtailed somewhat by Lucie dipping her head low, her arranged ringlets delicately bobbing like a skipping stone’s final drop into a disturbed pond—in sharp relief to her father, who at least impressed a steady if not demanding hand in his past missives.

“If Your Majesty wishes, we may take supper—oh!” Lucie, half-risen from her seat, froze for a moment in the appearance of a bow, the arrival of a servant who announced the Viscount’s entrance settling her once again.

“Please, have my sincere apologies,” Kleiman said with a formal bow, taking his seat as if vertigo held some sway over him. His eyelids fluttered, a keen focus within them at once. “These Kleiman winters have disagreed with me the past few years, but with this lovely bounty before us, now is not the time to speak of disagreements.”

Dimitri led the meal’s prayer by rote, eye focused on that middle distance where the Goddess seemed to regard him best. At the conclusion, each head round the table straightened and, obscured by a lacquer of cheer, he tilted his silvered cup in toast to good health, gesture of drinking masked for practiced sips. “May new bonds of lasting friendship be forged over this fine meal.” There a silent conversation, Dedue’s scant yet direct eye contact spurred his mouth onward to address the table at large again, and not, even to his eye, the dubiously seasoned meal. _No one else need know the folly of his words_. “The journey here, was it not too troublesome I hope?”

“Any bandits foolish to come against my men fell quickly.” Ferdinand assured, the boast of it warmed by his seat near the lit hearth though Dimitri averted his eye as Ferdinand’s gaze slipped over the table to Bernadetta. As the fireplace cast its light, dangling vapor coalesced against his genuine smile like a moldered pelt. “House Varley can always depend upon our resources, we offer them without hesitation.”

A burgeoning headache needled at his temples.

“The accompaniment was most appreciated.” Bernadetta’s small stature reduced her to disembodied words tucked beside Dedue.

She seemed a purple smudge faded upon Dimitri’s memory while he chewed a pungent and tasteless morsel, half an ear lent to the flow of small talk while he darted in and out of the conversation. Akin to parried blows though nothing so fatal carried over the table, at court or elsewhere wrought for danger of a different kind and weariness bore its own weight, groaning in its contortion to fit within the context of the inane. Somehow, the viscount and his daughter yoked the burrs of his vanguard irritation—clashing ideals, a myriad insistences—each quelled and shut away, like flurries caught as snowflakes in lashes and save for the stagnating meltwater in their form, Dimitri felt the warmth of camaraderie become a mantle they couldn’t leave sodden.

As Lorenz drew Lucie into discussing Kleiman territory, none of her facts were a revelation, each less charming in compare to whose mouth they had originally professed—mild pride fell not from her lips over Duscur’s bounty but a certain arrogance—with it Dimitri allowed Lorenz, pragmatic as he was, to carry the brunt of her recital of raw metals and weaponry.

“Lucie, you’ve gone away with it now.” Kleiman chided, leaning forward in his seat. The heavy signet ring on his finger glinted. “Surely just as any Alliance noble with his position Count Gloucester is privy to our exports. Though we have been lean of late.”

 _Lean_ was not to Kleiman as it appeared to most, nor did his voice carry lament for peaceable boons at his expense.

“Gloucester yields but two things: Crops. And thoroughbreds. I dare say they are the finest in all of Fódlan, the good Margrave Gautier‘s protests aside, and he isn’t here to disclaim it… yet for _mettle_ , I leave those affairs to the Countess.” Such a terrible pun. Still Dimitri found his mouth curled in good humour. “Your manse is lovely, but so far removed from the war did you not know the Alliance returned to Faerghus?” Both implication and tone inspired a rare bout of envy for Lorenz was under no such compunction as he gestured with a calculated affect to the room’s decor. “It is to the Kingdom’s gains I serve.”

A partial truth. Yet he appreciated such disclosure all the same.

At length then and as if he’d come to some conclusion, Kleiman nodded, his jowls battered by wind-chill and the particular early aging cruelty brought about on full display. “Always have I served Faerghus to a fault. I wasn’t so far from reach the Faerghus Dukedom forgot its claim to every precious material we unearthed. Or my sons.” For an interim where uttered soft condolences, his frown lines deepened. “Your Majesty, it is all the same to me, as long as the Holy Kingdom benefits.”

The reluctance of Kleiman’s words were concealed as deftly as the ornamental lances above the mantle. By force then.

“You have the ear of the crown and my advisors—how best may the Kingdom benefit from the chief of your concerns then?” Dimitri crossed his arms, relaxing a modicum after Lucie flinched beside him. “Speak freely.”

“Regent Rufus, may the Goddess rest his soul, saw fit to grant this territory to me for our family’s outstanding service.” Truly unfit to reign over more than a chamber pot, Rufus was a drunkard, fond of bear-baiting and a skirt-chaser to put Sylvain’s past antics to shame. “By his decree were we able to turn this Goddess forsaken land to greater production, Kleiman’s mining surpassed the needs of even the Dukedom at its most desperate time. This restoration harms our continued good works, to the detriment of the Holy Kingdom, no all Fódlan, surely my loyalty has inspired more than shuffling off to a middling legacy. Without our guidance, Kleiman—”

“Duscur.” Dedue spoke steady and true. “You were a steward of Duscur.”

And his tenure was over.

For the first time, Kleiman acknowledged Dedue’s presence, whose resilient tenacity cowed and shuttered the strain of his voice. All the better, for the rushing refrain of _break his neck, break his neck_ need not be sated as Kleiman’s face turned an interesting shade at the lack of rebuttal within the brief silence.

Distaste required little personal expertise, and the table collectively put away all pretense of eating.

Lorenz replaced his handkerchief to his breast pocket. “Hn, all Fódlan is quite a generous claim to purport for a viscount. But what of Duscur’s people?”

“Yes, Duscur…” A heavy swallow, the phlegmy drawl slipped into resignation. “To that end I fear the seize of Kleiman territory by our lessers leading to disreputable trade agreements. I ceded my former lands, and they now have surely fallen to ruin. And my dear Lucie, why, she’s accustomed to a certain level of comfort. What legacy am I to leave to her?”

“We came to this table in friendship and duty,” Marianne said, immaculate cadence bearing a forged steel. “If you refuse extend the former, surely the duty by which you’re compelled will guide your actions—consider how you intend to do good? And to be good to each other, we must make concessions.”

“ _That_ is a gesture to all of Fódlan, and history will not so easily forget it.” Ferdinand continued, not unkindly. “And if I may, there are a great many abandoned manses in Adrestia, you might settle in Ochs, perhaps the warm air, soft sands and milder winters will agree with your health.”

“What ever should I do there?” Kleiman laughed at the suggestion. “I’m a Faerghus man, as my father before me, I shall die upon its holy soil half-frozen and none other.”

“Father, you shouldn’t speak so!” Lucie’s distress marked Kleiman acknowledge her outburst and though the severe angle of her head in deference called to mind petty thieves in a pillory, outside the scope of his hearing she archly mumbled something resembling _the beach sounds lovely._

Beside her, Ferdinand bit the inside of his cheek, his expression neutral yet distorted by a gauzy film.

“Then why not make yourself anew, it’s the perfect opportunity.” Bernadetta didn’t shrink from her suggestion even as Kleiman, glancing over the table, found no friend there save the loyalty of his daughter. “Let your legacy be a beginning, not an end.” With that, she reached out a hand to his forearm which he covered, pressed once. “You control your fate, Viscount—what say you?”

After a solemn nod, with the familiarity of sudden kinship Kleiman patted Bernadetta’s hand which she pulled back as he began to speak. “Yes, Your Majesty…” He licked his upper lip as if to catch some unseen crumb, face downturned so his speech allowed Dimitri capture the full breadth of his widow’s peak. “My King, I will honor and comply, as I have laid before you and the select and eminent peerage of Fódlan all important matters with concerns to, to _Duscur_ , and such judgement, whatsoever you propose I take to heart and as the Goddess’ divine will.”

He ground his teeth, masking the strain in clearing his throat. “You have refused your posited options. The particulars will be sent to your chambers.” Hand against that silvered cup, Dimitri released it from his grip, a soft gasp at his left swift to follow at the perfect indents of his fingertips crushed into its surface. “I imagine you will find your needs met in Itha, where you in memoriam hold dear that connection to Rufus. Let each document bear your signature, lest you find my kindness limited.”

“So it shall be. Itha is… truly an immeasurable kindness I’ll not soon forget. For my good fortune, I must thank you. It is to a new season we drink.”

Pinched between Gautier and Fhirdiad, in Itha Kleiman would be hard-pressed to rally a coup to any success. Or any other resources for that matter.

“Yes and with joy, my friend.” Addressed to the room, Dimitri lingered upon Dedue, and returned, further warmed with one gracious pull.

  
Dimitri’s cup, clouded with the dregs of convention, chivalry, and wine—its singular nuance lost on his tongue save the warmth in his belly—stood unattended as tradition led them to the ground floor living-room. Seeking to entertain, Kleiman had called for a table and cards, but having lost the last hand, presently withdrew before the fireplace, nursing another drink while observing from afar. Above the silhouette of Kleiman’s chair draped that accursed heraldry like a clay coloured shroud against the washed walls. A pain as quick as it dulled lanced behind Dimitri’s brow. Within the moment echoed a scream. He flinched. Set on edge, he eased through a stuttered breath as Dedue’s concern writ plain. Concern. Not mutual wariness.

“Your Majesty?” No one else had heard the piercing cry. Long dead then.

“It’s nothing.” He gazed sightless at the cards of his hand, each well-worn depiction a slurry of rising misfortune. Card spun to the table’s center, a knight of the crown, his cavalry come too late. He folded.

Dimitri indulged, however slight, as he peered at Dedue’s hand, though careful to keep his expression neutral, a certain pleasantness staved off the last of the chill wracked there and gone over his skin. With himself out of the way prompted a fair suggestion. “Let’s make an amendment—pair off, so the game may go faster.”

Most amenable, compliance suited Lorenz and Marianne as one, then Dedue and Ferdinand, leaving Bernadetta and Lucie as the last, which struck the latter an opportunity. Woefully inept on the subject, Bernadetta tried to keep Lucie abreast of Varley, though Lucie’s attentions waned as Varley didn’t solely consist of beaches. Soon both bowed out, much to his own amusement. There lay the sabotage.

“You gave it your best effort,” Kleiman told his daughter, his eyes shining from drink. “Come, come, show them your talent for singing.” And Lucie strode to the piano in the corner, Lorenz wincing as she plonked a few exploratory notes.

“As a means of distraction, this will serve us well.” Freckles scattered across his face all but blood spatter, Ferdinand implored the table. “Why do we not set up a wager? I would say Bernadetta—since you have already forfeit, show us your book.” 

Marianne looked on now with vested curiosity though Bernadetta, hands curled tight into her lap, paid no heed, expression troubled.

“Uh, that is… unless you do not wish to, that is fine too. But it is lovely. It was only a suggestion.”

“You’d better have something significant too.” She left to retrieve it, her voice a flurry of high pitched litany underlain by Ferdinand’s sigh.

“Lady Varley is correct, what should we expect to deprive your person? Your finest tea perhaps?” Lorenz lowered his voice in half-warning. “ _Not_ those abominable pastries Adrestia loves overmuch.”

“Mercedes bakes a variation even you could not resist, it would be a generous gift. Though she has yet to divulge the recipe. I propose you donate to Aegir, along our as per usual trade route for the delivery of a harvest, a sum of roses. Red roses.” Ferdinand’s specter clung, writhed. “For a season.” Dimitri closed his eye, only Lorenz’ protest dragging him from solace.

“Gloucester roses would hardly withstand the journey, I’ll not have them wilted and inferior.”

“Our courier could carry them as perishables, I think it’s a sweet gesture for Mercedes.” Marianne reached a solution convincing enough to even him. “I accept your terms… but an entire season seems excessive.”

“Agreed, two moons of our best bouquets. Now, there must be an equitable trifle in exchange.”

“The Axe of Ukonvasara.”

“You’ve lost me entirely.” Mouth twisting, Lorenz leveled Ferdinand a look of utter disbelief. “Returning my gift, I’m both appalled and morbidly curious, you’ve brought it here?”

“There will be no need send for it, for we will not be beaten as Sir Molinaro, also possessed of a superior taste the most noble of weapons, share an altogether unbreakable quality of wit, skill and fortitude.”

“Accomplished indeed. To that end, the Gloucester alliance shall not waver. Sir Molinaro, do you agree to these terms, what shall you offer?”

Entering the room with a thick leather tome, Bernadetta joined the Viscount at his curious behest, her quiet explanations taking up his attentions.

“I offer a day’s silence from Duke Aegir.”

Even at his expense Ferdinand joined in as the table erupted into laughter.

“Now that is valuable, my friend.” Dimitri clasped Dedue’s shoulder, the muscle tense. He withdrew.

“What shall I sing?” Lucie asked the room, done with scales and simple melodies.

Lucie, in fact, possessed an average singing voice, the muted applause polite as she segued into roundelay.

The game resumed in earnest during a blessedly wordless rendition of _Thou Wast Lovely_. Between one note and the next Dimitri’s headache swung in kind. Altogether pleased by fortune’s turn, Lorenz collected his quarry from Ferdinand with a chortle which softened at Marianne’s errant play, too late she noticed her error and any amendments were met with dual objections as Dedue wrested the hunt. 

A moment of triumph, victory and its spoils forfeited in the arrival of tea service, ritual laid out—a steaming pot, cups and saucers, a small tray of sweets—in silence by two servants, a Duscur boy and middle-aged Faerghus maid. Skinny and reserved, he poured each cup with a singular focus. Plump-cheeked and scowling, her features contorted in an ill-repressed mien, scolding as the boy spilt tea onto the table. Wiping up the mess, she seized the teapot and he stood unsure and glancing in overt curiosity at Dedue. Proper service or no, Kleiman carried conversation at what seemed a distance Dimitri found an impasse, every unacceptable rationale at his perusal. Dedue had made of himself a fortress stoic under a siege which he couldn’t name, however the ramparts of his brow didn’t buckle, the subtle shake of his head curtailing Lorenz on the cusp of speech; former parley left Dimitri’s own mouth flooded with untasted bitterness. The boy startled when thanked, the obvious rarity sent Ferdinand utter an oath caught by the rafters. 

They two departed, Marianne broached the silence, well-placed orator’s smile taut. “Pardon me, I should like to know what intrigues Bernadetta to author an entire book.”

“You will have to share the details later,” Lorenz said, expression soft as he took up her hand, kissed in the easy affections borne of the Alliance and she then parted from the table, leaving her untouched cup of strong herbal tea.

🙦

Within the upper floor, their party thinned door by door of the long narrow hall to their separate quarters, each bid goodnight in turns until all remained were he and Dedue, his pace a stride back as customary though not particularly wanted, every meted footfall compounding all the night’s irritations until they roiled under his skin.

What a deplorable creature.

Only moments before, as six had pared to four, Lorenz stepped close, his voice a candid murmur before he returned to Marianne’s arm.

 _If there are to be any honest words spoken tonight, the old ways of the Alliance would have seen the dear odious Viscount killed outright. I must commend United Fódlan for its mercy._ And here, he privately agreed. _Well I shall sleep all the better knowing this is the state of the world we live in._

Perhaps Lorenz was correct in that regard as well. But sleep would not claim him just yet. Taking a measured breath lest his strength betray him, Dimitri pushed open the door to his quarters. At his back, Dedue bid him goodnight. One step, another. Frozen at the threshold, a bright sting of shock sluiced between Dimitri’s shoulder blades, reanimating his limbs and drawing him back into the hall. He called out to him.

“Dedue, are you overtired?” At once unsure—to try, stubborn as Dedue was—but in a small wish he turned and leaned against the oaken door. “I had thought we might talk for a while. I would not keep you.”

“As you say.” He acquiesced, pressing against the barricade of the evening, of so many years, in hesitancy, in faith, to brush past. “I thought it best to remain cautious…”

Dimitri sighed, a short breath which echoed the small click of the door, their near contact setting to rights the wending path tread underfoot. “All the saints, I thought we—oh.” Shielded from the full scope of the room, beyond Dedue’s tensed silhouette pointed his gesture to the small hunkered shadow angled strange, misshapen for the trunk’s form alone by the foot of the bed. A poor hiding place for an assassination attempt. “You’ve been discovered.”

The shadow of the intruder, for they must be, trembled but remained in place.

“Reveal yourself—you won’t be asked twice,” Dedue said in all caution and command, redoubled as Dimitri stepped forward, much to his consternation. A small hand grasped the trunk lid and the boy from before emerged. “What are you doing here?”

The boy mumbled in response, a glint in his palm.

“ _Speak louder_ ,” Dedue said, Duscur dialect furthering the boy’s rattled expression.

Shored under their dual scrutiny, he gave no call to action. Given not to the idle fidgeting of a child, he curled in on himself. “Fire. Mila made me light the fires.”

His hand unfurled revealing a chunk of flint. With the hearth light angled behind him so, he altogether had the look of an inverse Cyril, head of curly red hair like a burning pyre yet without matching disposition, dark brown eyes wincing open unable to make contact, instead flitting from Dedue to a space beyond Dimitri’s shoulder, which struck a pang different than the slowing beat of his pulse in his neck.

He swallowed around it. “Why did you hide?”

“Mila’s eyes aren’t good if she came to fetch me.” Dithering, the boy persisted in avoidance, eyes elsewhere. “I prefer it be anyone but her check twice.”

The fire crackled, high and bright.

And the boy stuttered his gambit at him. “I’m slow but I won’t mess up again. Sorry, do it right, properly.” He enunciated carefully like it a frequent chastisement.

“You wished to be left alone to your task.” Musing aloud, suspicion of another sort arose.

“And you meant no harm to His Majesty?” Dedue reached out for the flint.

 _Only if harm came in expedient warmth._ The boy shook his head, reached up for placing the little prop in his hand. “You are friends with the king?”

“Faerghus and Duscur were always meant to be friends, just as you see it.” Tone matched in kind, Dimitri stood rooted to the spot. Perhaps his words alone may reach the boy yet. “You are quite clever.”

“Faerghus never been anything like a friend to me,” he whispered.

“Nor I. But we intend to mend it some.” Dedue sighed and for all the world Dimitri wished to alleviate the weight of it. “That is why we are here.”

 _“What is your given name?”_ Dimitri asked, his tongue met with stumbled success and a certain relief came in the honesty of the boy’s shock.

“ _Answer him.”_

“Roah. That’s my name.” 

“A good, strong name. You have plenty of Duscur spirit.” Dedue dropped into a crouch before Roah so he might narrow the disparity in eye-level, the farce in his palm a dull luster while he considered for a moment. No fire could bloom from flinted tinder so quickly. “Who taught you magic?”

“I don’t know, nobody.” The burning wood popped as if to tattle on him. Roah stepped back, sullen. “It’s my secret.”

 _“You will not be hurt here,”_ Dedue said softly.

Something of Roah calmed, though by understanding or tone, it mattered not as Roah shot a dodgy look between them. “I taught myself.”

“You learned all by yourself?” For all this an obvious lie, Dedue tempered his chastisement with gentle skepticism. “That is a very big claim, Roah.”

“But I can do this now, see?” Roah adamantly gestured to the fireplace. “Not as a start, once I burned a curtain.” At his confession, Roah tensed and pointed out the unmarred curtains as proof of progress. “But I put it out. Not with magic. And I can make really good tea.”

“I suppose you can, though I wonder you must enjoy it to make such gains.” Dimitri hummed. “Do you like learning magic?”

“Yes, very much.” He lit up, all pleading eyes. “Are, are you going to, will you teach me?”

“I’m afraid I cannot.” Dimitri said as Dedue responded in kind. Roah’s shoulders sagged. A shame to go unchecked. “You’ve done well on your own.”

Dedue reassured him and his kindness impressed upon Roah a small return of his former alacrity.

“The village tried to looked after me some. And I practiced all the time on market day.” Ah. There came the truth of it. “But I never get to go anymore.”

“I see. During our stay, should there be a fit teacher for you, would you like that?” Carried in Dedue’s voice a loveliness Dimitri could’ve no better repressed his own smile while Roah nodded in such fervor and delight. “Good, finish tonight’s work so you may rest well.”

After Dedue returned the flint to his cupped palm Roah took off as if such were as good as promised to him though he halted at the door, performing a deep bow in equal measure grateful and endearing.

“I’d not make him promises I cannot keep, but Count Gloucester does owe me a favour.” While the cheer wasn’t taken from his voice with Roah’s departure, his gaze spun even and serious as it met his own. “It could have been worse, Dimitri, have more care.”

Oh, even so his name was a balm to the horrid affairs and cultivated distance of the evening, and at the face of it, Dimitri renewed. Deeper still the wound stung. “Goodness, in no world would I want to be afraid of a child.”

“Swords all cut the same. But no, I would not want that, neither can I help but to be wary for you in your stead. If you refuse.”

“And I do.” His grin turned impish. Alone together permitted the familiar once more. “Yet you encourage his passion for more than warming tea kettles.”

“Someone should. The boy’s service won’t be rewarded. ”

“True the stingy bastard retains no loyalty.” He stretched out his hand. Dedue received it, their fingers striped lines of scars and callus and so much hope. “If all goes as planned, he will keep his head for a few moon’s more.”

 _Pity that justice claim it and not I._ The scope of justice far larger than he, to that Dimitri did learn and owe. An outward accord between Duscur and Kleiman for proper return to its people. The future tarnish of Kleiman’s revealed treason before the crown and court wouldn’t vanish so easily from the public weal. Thereby minimizing discontent. No lingering prejudice, so stodgy and unbowed before even logic, would rebel against such transition. At least in this he wished to silence such ignorant wagging tongues.

“Vengeance has other means of satisfaction.” Dedue’s hand tensed, drew him close. In the dour press of his mouth, familiar in shared conviction, bore a gentleness Dimitri knew all along, ten years preserved.

For everything they had suffered, their course meant to mitigate another’s own.

The ghosts haunting him hadn’t screamed or wailed for justice yet they neither left him in peace. A terribly sorry thing then. Like this, a path he chose. Dimitri would not bend to their call.

A kiss against his forehead, surprise curled intent on flushing his cheeks red, easy to forget the precipice from which they found themselves perched in its return. Good for him, with him, easy to center himself on the tangible, there and perfect in its own time. But in a single gesture Dedue loosed his grasp first, a retreat on all counts as he stepped back.

Theirs a quiet communion, not quick to action, perhaps over so and Dimitri hastened in its stead. “I must apologize for in any way making you uncomfortable after dinner, it was my mistake to let slip any familiarity.”

“Pray they thought nothing of it, there’s a quiet power in underestimation.” He cautioned. “Besides, I could not fault boldness what defines you. When have you ever not been so?”

“It was rash.” Dimitri crossed his arms, gentled in the prize of Dedue’s teasing though blunt by compare, he crumbled in the venturing quiet. “Everyone seemed quite changed—did they not seem different to you?”

“Not just you.” Nostalgia marked his tone; kept abreast by letters, their exchanges incomparable to wielded roles of grace and power—Ferdinand’s prior petition for Bernadetta as replacement for Mercedes an unexpected instrumental sway, while Marianne’s confidence fashioned her poised. “Some for the better.”

“If only we had more success in prizing Lorenz’ secrets.” Despite their combined efforts, Fhirdiad and its poor soil were a formidable opponent—one best conquered with strategy. Or trade agreements. “I’d not have us be so reliant forever.”

“Another time.” Brow rumpled and arms folded, Dedue propped his chin against his knuckles tucked into a loose fist. “I will speak with him before he returns to Gloucester.” A trusted result, together they could achieve anything.

“Of course, I am glad for them saving us a wretched ordeal. Tell me, was the food so poor as the company?”

“Spices of Duscur aren’t meant to be used that way.” Dedue winced, for all his affront he tried to sympathize. “Somehow both over and under-seasoned. I will never understand Faerghus tongues.”

“Yet you know mine.”

“I have no clue what you suggest.” Colour high on his cheeks, he executed any further teasing.

“Forgive me, it was a jest.” An inelegant snort escaped Dimitri to Dedue’s sigh. “Pay me no mind.”

A stroke of inspiration. Exhausted by empty prattle over supper and instead bolstered by Dedue’s posture, Dimitri tucked his chin over his shoulder. Lured to tarry there, for Dedue was the locus of his attentions, yet time and place had not permitted indulgences until now.

In truth, by himself Dimitri had lost hours to this room, its trappings lost on him, in each overwrought detail how the unjust lived, all placards of hissing failures and an ensnarled empathy he’d yet to trespass tonight. The only boon had come in seeing Dedue once again, having changed into finer clothes than the ones they’d traveled. Now with his hair pulled back in its usual style, though varied by its thick bun, twin braids wove at the shaven border like nacre in the light, gleaming and reminiscent of a fine carving. He breathed in, scented lightly with oil. How his slow exhale punctured the air, exchanged for Dedue’s quiet hum, the vibration felt against his own frame.

In his embrace Dedue shifted, fallen high collar a commendable effort for such an allure gone unattended— and when had Dimitri need for praise?

In idle smoothing over textured embroidery with one hand, Dedue stilled his wandering palm. In the cup of it, calmed. In splendor then, as Dedue faced him, the thin gold band securing his hair winking in the firelight. Neither ostentatious nor gaudy. Simply taken as he was, as a man of Duscur, a friend, a lover. Were they in Fhirdiad, all that lay at the forefront of his mind would be voiced sentiment. But Dedue’s mouth had professed a caution he heeded, instead dwelling on the blessedly lone scar creased at its corner, at odds and perhaps strange in at once how he was struck by the handsomeness there in so many words, clear and obvious to him. _I know that face._ Expression, mood, and the breadth of immeasurable honor in the full of that knowledge brought by time and familiarity.

No, Dimitri sustained himself on past velvet affections, fine and resplendent for their existence.

“Tonight marks Duscur’s return and the start of transition.” Cloud of gathered innermost thoughts promising what once had been captive, withheld by choice lay plain in the furrow of Dedue’s brow, Dimitri found his own patience shored there as well. “I have hope. However small it might be. Once the exchange is completed, it will grow.” The particular dew clinging to Dedue’s gaze dried up in his marked distaste centered on a point beyond Dimitri, his leaping heart, and their shared concern. “Even Fhirdiad wasn’t prone to the wickedness of this place.”

A bear pelt, grizzled fur removed of its living luster to hang as tapestry captured Dedue’s attentions and Dimitri’s confusion. To boast of a prized hunt might be permissible, but to this which bordered on obscene, both in pride and function, he grimaced in kind, putting aside his own misgivings at such excess. “You sense such wickedness too, a malign oppression in the very air?”

“The face of greed is pitiable.” Dedue hovered a single hand over the bear’s skull, its great maw revealing ivory teeth shimmering with applied metal as if to imbue the whole sad affair a lifelike terror.

Once an ignorable thrum, his headache sang in tandem with the discordant beat of his blood. “Dedue…” Breathing his name, he found the tether of peace in distress. Small yet present. Tempered in the whirling silence.

“Callous and spared nothing, these ten long years…” Grazing the dull fur, his hand dropped stiff at his side, posture at attention yet his shoulders shuddered, warding off any recollection to knighthood. “Insults, their hateful actions I endured. But in Duscur again, I understand anew. To share a meal. To parlance. Without remorse, I hold them in contempt. Kleiman is a lashing out child. Children have more rationale.” He shook his head, frown waylaid perchance by the same thought of Roah. “And more innocence.”

“It’s true, what diplomacy accomplishes beggars Kleiman, and all of his simple-minded ilk, but you are who brought Kleiman to silence, that hastened Duscur to its glory and pride.” An instinct which shame flooded, he forcibly quelled the wailing baseness which demanded blood spill in recompense for his travails. “I believe in that future.”

Dedue looked back at him, solemn nod ingrained in cultured practice by its angles. _Let that be the end of it._

It was not.

Yet he complied, past having quite made a spectacle of his own pain, he wouldn’t pry, heart sore as Dedue took his leave, creak of the door only warning.

They both startled. As if poised to knock, Marianne stood with another obscured by Dedue’s silhouette. “Oh, Amba—Sir Molinaro!” Her surprise melded into expectancy. “I might request a moment with King Dimitri—she refused speak to any but you,” Marianne said.

Dedue stepped aside and they two passed into the room.

The person with Marianne a servant, her breath labored as she dipped in curtsey and Marianne’s apology to Dedue became backdrop as the servant rose, face entreating. “Begging your forgiveness for the late hour, I’d seen nowhere else to turn.” Her head bowed after he implored more detail, some heavy word caught on her tongue.

Marianne stepped forward to grip her elbow not unkindly. “Take your time.” She cast a glance his way, the vice of her lips writ with hesitant concern though less so in wrapping an arm around her to course a back-and-forth pattern over her shaking shoulder as tears tracked down her mottled cheeks.

“My Lady, thank you.” She sniffled uncovering her mouth, sob stifled by will alone. Watery eyes met his own.

“Viscount Kleiman is dead.”

Marianne’s soothing stilled and Dedue, his stoicism fine hewn, tattered.

_All would be well._

“I am...” Had the night not already presented itself hopeful, a foolish notion, dashed to fragments—may each take him to the eternal flames. Dimitri swallowed, breath stilted. “I am sorry to hear illness claimed him.”

Her buckling knees given support by Marianne as her expression twisted in kind, she floundered. “I, what illness be there present itself such, there was so much blood, it, none I know of!”

 _Blood?_ Exchanged glances hidden from the poor maid, they incited his resolve, direct with what kindness he could muster, for the news had stirred a bone-deep despair, he implored her once more. “Then by what means did he fall?”

“The Goddess keep him, ‘twas murder, Your Majesty!”

“You saw the culprit?” Dimitri asked, frown matching Dedue’s own. She denied. “Take me to him—unfamiliar as I am with the manor, I must depend upon your guidance.” His smile was apologetic as she acquiesced.

Directions segmented by soft weeping, she a trailed mooring to their expedition, they filed down the hall, past ghosts twisting round the rafters in mocking misfortune. Viscount Kleiman should have answered for his crimes, not settled rosy-cheeked into the arms of the Goddess while leaving behind the living who must suffer all entailed. But what had Her teachings lent him? Numb and floating, the gauzy film of Kleiman Manor smothered his vision until a foreboding rectangle of light disrupted its wending about his neck. His fingertips tingled.

Boot nudging against the shard of light on the steps up to the solar, he thanked the maid, her hands clutched tight at an embroidered handkerchief while he spoke to Marianne. “Please inform none else of what transpired here–get some rest.”

“Yes, of course. Allow me to lead you back to your quarters.” In that way of understanding, Marianne turned away, the heavy silks of her dressing gown skimming the wooden floors as the maid muffled cries over poor Lucie.

What tarried his gaze, he cannot name as she disappeared whence they came, though nagged for the clustered mass nestled in her dressing gown’s tie, its colour washed out in his vying attentions as he stepped into the solar proper.

It was the stench that hit him first—akin to foul ichor festered upon a battlefield’s aftermath without the acrid odor of magic, the heightened tang of metal armor. A smoky hearth and tallow fat candles burned low, trapping upon the room the disconcerting scent of cooking meat. His footing slipped.

It was Dedue’s hand which steadied him. Receded perhaps to plug his nose, an equitable action, for where Viscount Kleiman enshrined lay slick with enough blood Dimitri regarded the floor beneath them for its traces only to find a fallen tea tray near his feet. With a sweep of his boot Dedue cast aside the teapot fragments, their porcelain teeth metal flecked and glinting with its patterned design, skittered tinkling through the liquid puddled on the tiles.

On his side, back turned, Kleiman lay paces away, sprawled as if he’d truly taken a fall which Dimitri mused aloud upon while Dedue, avoiding the particular mess, had made a discomfited noise behind him, moving to unlatch the nearest window. “If only he were.”

Half spoiled upon the rush mats lain ruined by the sanguine epicenter of his resting place, perhaps Kleiman were the single gravestone already turned to rubble and dust for the weight of it. Dimitri hunched near the body, reaching out with a steady hand. The catch of the window stuck, creaking open until a blessed breeze whispered through the room, fragrant with some night blossom.

Nothing of the Goddess lay in this room.

“He deserved worse,” he said, words equally leaden as his stomach, maintaining his stance even as he stifled an urge to recoil from turning Kleiman supine.

Kleiman had been flayed in all senses, his clothes finery stripped in its stained brown-red sop. Though he be toothed and wicked all the way down, his innards appeared same as any other, gutted without compassion inasmuch as he lived, and cleaved with the skill of a butcher’s first day apprentice. From his parted lips surrounded a frothed viscous residue. Wide-eyed and rheumy, dead set eyes overflowed tears, their trail streaked in dried rivulets over shadowed blue-veined cheeks, a strange tinge, reminiscent of a beclouded memory, shuffled among death’s familiarity. Misplaced then. 

Despite how he no relish to the task, Kleiman cannot stay here. And though Dedue may protest his action, he would be damned twofold before he ask or allow such fellowship of him.

Soaking his eyepatch and cheek the same, his eyes watered as he lifted the body into his arms, the body stinking and reeking of unseasonable decomposition. Grunting not from its weight but the lolling head, a smear of froth releasing a waft of putrid oddly floral air which lingered even as he sipped what clean air he could in staggered breaths. He ventured further into the solar to Kleiman’s chambers, his haste to be rid of the wet drip echoing his steps for the curtained bed which he placed him. Kleiman’s hand curled in four-fingered rictus, signet ring missing.

Dimitri drew the damask curtains closed.

Dedue stood half-braced by a lacquered table, the tallow candle on its surface smoking in a singular tendril like incense. Kleiman’s effects untouched, a false altar in abandoned tea service, a vase of sparse flowers. Dedue’s shadow overlapped the blotched carpet where his gaze honed unwavering even as he approached.

What marred Dimitri aught not deter him, yet how his palms stoppered their movement, sullied by his efforts. Between them, Dedue held out parchment, scrawled signature a last act.

He had signed their agreement.

🙦

Soap slick between his fingers, Dimitri scrubbed until his skin rubbed raw. He mistrusted his tongue as he stared down at the wash basin, his pink-stained reflection in its shallow depths distorted by droplets from the washrag. For the span of his cleansing, Dedue had settled on the divan’s edge—silence a source of worry though nearness smoothed a single burr upon his heart—enduring the swill of the basin’s water while his hands opened in prayer to the Duscur gods. _To send, to receive_. Dimitri ground his teeth, his jaw ached. What succor he found in prayers, may they be granted. He dared not interrupt. Untying the string of his eyepatch so he might lay down the armament and take up the pitcher, cupping his palm, he splashed clean water over his face, the thin cool rivulets providing no respite as they dampened his collar. With the rest of his tunic spattered with lifeblood and its fabric stiff in places, he divested of that as well.

There would be no saving it.

After a vigorous wring he discarded the washrag beside the chunk of wood an obvious match to the table’s edge. He’d no mind to his hands anymore as they rummaged through his trunk, landing upon the first shirt he encountered, its supple fabric fallen at his hips. He couldn’t count it grace for the garment’s entirety. Frustrated by buttons, his fingers refuse cooperate, indelicate. Always would be. Fool in the mantle of king. Words shuffled and bent, ill-fit. There was an attempt made, a fledgling venture extinguished inadequate in heckling taunts. Placket full open he stood, bid his tongue unstick to no avail, chilled by a ghost of neither his making or affectation.

Steadfast and fortified, Dedue hunched over, elbows braced against his knees, head bowed not by prayer. His hands clasped together, unmoving, their former pacing evident in his tousled hair. Stone by stone unchecked tears slipped down his nose.

Dimitri crossed the floorboards in two long strides without thought or care or hesitation, the single action he could indulge in joining by his side. 

“Faerghus will change under your reign, conviction led me always.” Dedue’s voice flattened with a grim determination as tightly bound as a sealed scroll, with the same cadence as in the past of steeling himself before the worst of their battles. Yet despite all that rigid formality, he withdrew, not so much a retreat but deflection, his jaw by turns entombed by the dead which lived in him and rationed every confession through mores. Neither could escape.

So Dimitri might wait, bide speech for hopes the latter might win, might recover to victory attended by blunt honesty where in its precedent he named most precious—yet in the end, Dedue spoke again unprompted, though it was neither victory nor embittered defeat.

“I’d not weep for him.” _Nor_ _I._ Dedue’s throat caught, faltered in resignation. “Faerghus may change yet, Your Majesty. But people are never so quick to do.” Come to grief all the same, which sorrow once cast Dedue as immovable, now loosed an unhappy sob from Dedue’s chest Dimitri could no longer abide, gathering him in with both arms.

No, now he would not be moved.

“I was—I am proud.” Dedue lifted his gaze, attempt to stopper his tears altogether expected, altogether terrible as he bit his lower lip bloodless. “To see a tomorrow that might not have come. That I might not have ever seen.”

“Even so, you will yet still.”

He coursed his back, palms steady and sure. At a time far too long for his liking but had at length led Dedue nearest, his station fashioned himself into a shield by his own designs. And Dimitri could no more rewrite the past for such power was beyond him. Even now his arms stretched over shoulders which tried suppress their tremble. Oh, how he had him, held him as Dedue cried, his tears and breath hidden and muffled into his shoulder made a bulwark for unintelligible words. His soft comforts as they were seemed feeble in the face of such despair. _Let me be an inflexible respite_ , one hand wandering to his nape, the rasp of shorn hair against his thumb in even strokes. He certainly loved no object.

A pillar without foundation, Dimitri held fast. How had it gone? _Harbinger of the horizon, earth and sky met, rose a dawn for all united who sought under the twain in glory…_ A simple prayer which might have saved him once, if he’d been lucid enough to hear it. Alone in the cathedral, alone in his madness—the Goddess walked among the clouds, reserved to observation, neglect, and spared all the possibility of intervention. Immutable echoes of Her silence, unfeeling to torment, knells in the divide and all time but a blink. The scales removed from Dedue’s own. Overcast, yet not alone. Dimitri swore in silent vow what relief he might bestow prove enough. Wisps of Dedue’s hair tickled against his cheek like cloud cover, nearer to consecrated ground.

Tenderness imbued in his caress, Dimitri shifted enough to kiss the crown of his head, lifted from a sorrowed arc. The lines of Dedue’s face blurred. “I’m sorry, his death will not be venerated, my love.” Dearth comforts. In the space between he petitioned Dedue’s hand. Intertwined, their linked hands were scarred, war-hewn callus resistant to fade, and so much flesh and bone. Whatever must be done. Whatever he be capable of, his mettle, his honor, whatever they be for. Disrelished on his useless tongue, if justice became an extension of force or terms, so be it. “I swear it. We’ve his “ _good name_ ” to stay those idle bodies at court who might dishonor the wishes of the dead. No matter what racist scavengers plot, I swear to you his crimes will be exhumed so all may know of Duscur’s innocence.”

“Were it but so. Once word travels, it will be Duscur blood they come baying for,” Dedue countered. “You know this—enacting a tenuous exchange will not hold before the truth of last rites when the convenience of rumor compares to retribution’s ire.”

“I will not allow it.” Errantly stroking his thumb against Dedue’s hand, he blinked away what clouded his vision. “Your retinue before mine, can take up its post in the settlement beyond the manor. They will cause less alarm.”

“At first light.” Dedue nodded, soft grunt construed on anyone else a sigh. “If we can beggar the same from the present council.”

“Yes, if we can.” Misdoubt was an impelling professor—he stilled his ministrations, tension bled back into his voice without permission. “Their discretion and compliance… I must pin hope upon whosoever killed him in a fit of misguided compulsion.” But to what end? He shook his head. “The result is the same.”

Dedue uttered it was done. Truly, jeopardizing their endeavors must be dealt with resolutely. Ferdinand, Bernadetta, the Gloucesters. Despite in the past each proven ingrained to deny the downtrodden suffer alone, may whatever good remained hold steady for come the dawn was a day of reckoning. And there they reached an accord.

Another after much cajoling, for Dedue remained in his quarters. Though held close even in the haze between waking and slumber, he was as stiff and tense as a gnarled root. Loosened by unfettered words, Dimitri tucked his face into the bend of his shoulder and neck, a column where whispered intent pressed upon and trellised with his own brand of committed devotion. One for sorrow, two for faith and joy, last for confidence.

It will not come to bloodshed. Not for the innocent. For now there was a particular letter transcribed in all haste to Fhirdiad, sent bearing his seal, sent with paucity of detail facing an indeterminate extension of their stay, sent for Annette who must take heart a caution to be on her guard at ruling court in his stead.

He sent for Areadbhar.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, comments and kudos are appreciated! I can be found elsewhere via [ tumblr ](http://maisoncavalier.tumblr.com/) and on [twitter](https://twitter.com/maisoncavalier) where I am almost certainly rambling about Dimidue~


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